


it's a hard knock life

by thememoriesfire



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thememoriesfire/pseuds/thememoriesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Alice, who wanted Santana growing up in Lima Heights Adjacent and being shown the ropes by Aphasia.  [That girl from Jane Addams Academy; don't ask.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a hard knock life

The first time she meest Aphasia, she gets knocked on her ass and all of her salt water taffy gets stolen.

“I know where you live, you jerk!” she yells, because she’s nine and her mom would probably spank her if she said something like  _bitch_.

Aphasia turns around on her worn Chucks and blows Santana a kiss. 

Santana gets back up on her feet and dusts off her shorts and t-shirt and then grumbles something like, “We need to show that girl what her place is here.”

“Dude, you don’t mess with Aphasia.  She’s got like knives and stuff,” Puckerman says.  He’s dumb as bricks, but smart enough to not try to give her a hand getting up.

“Yeah, and now she’s got all my taffy.  We’re going to get it back,” Santana says, watching as Aphasia struts down the street, loudly chewing on _Santana’s taffy_. 

“You’re insane,” Puckerman says.

*

Twelve hours later, she’s jimmying open the door to Aphasia’s apartment with a screwdriver and some bobby pins, while Puckerman’s on watch.

She makes it all the way to Aphasia’s bedroom before getting caught, at which point Aphasia just says, “Damn, girl, you got balls, comin’ up in here like that.”

“Gimme back my taffy.”

“Make me,” Aphasia says.

*

Next Monday, they see each other from other sides of the school yard.  Aphasia has a busted cheek and a black eye, and Santana can only barely hide the massive bandage on her forehead under her favorite Cavs cap.

_ You pretty dope _  is the message Aphasia leaves in her locker.

_ It’s ‘you are’, you dumb bitch _ , Santana writes back a few hours later, because her mom seems to know when she curses out loud but not so much when she just  _writes_  bad words.

*

They’re best friends from that moment on, and they rule their little corner block of Lima Heights from the time they’re twelve onwards.  They tolerate Puckerman, but nobody including him really messes with them.  They look like two dirty little angels, all smiles and well-wishes when adults walk by, but they rain terror down on the other kids in the neighborhood.

When they’re thirteen, they start collecting everyone’s lunch money and put them on rations—nobody in Lima Heights needs a goddamned milk allowance.  Somehow that leads to Aphasia making out with this dumb oaf called Sam Evans who lives in Adjacent, and Santana watches with a frown as Aphasia hooks up with the guy again and again.

“What the fuck, yo.  What do you see in that slice of Wonderbread?” she asks, later that night, when they’re counting their cash for the day and Aphasia’s passing over a 40 of Jack to her.  (They don’t  _really_  drink much, it’s just part of the image and whatever, some people like to pay them in liquor rather than blood or tears.)

“His wallet,” Aphasia says, holding it up with a sly little grin.

Santana almost sighs in relief.  “Fuck, you had me worried.”

Aphasia starts flipping through Sam Evans’ wallet, digs out his plastic and his cash, and then says, “I’mma make out with him one more time just to give this back to him.  Then we gonna meet some of his friends, and do the same shit.”

Santana stares at her with a little bit of awe.  “Where do you learn this fucking stuff?”

“ _Baywatch,_ yo.  That shit is dope.”

*

By the time they’re fifteen, they have a whole racket of make-out robbing set up.  Santana’s down with it, but doesn’t seem to really be  _into_ it the way that Aphasia sometimes is—like she enjoys hooking up with those poor fuckers they’re stealing blind.

She’s not really sure how to bring it up, though, and Aphasia has other concerns.

“We can expand our business,” she says, lighting a cigarette and then passing the pack to Santana.  “For real, let’s branch out.”

“What, like, deeper into adjacent?”

“Nah,” Aphasia says, blowing a crooked smoke ring into the night sky.  “We already tapping everything that counts there, shit ain’t got more money to go around.”

“Well then, what?” Santana asks.  “My ten speed can only get me so fucking far into town, yo, and I don’t hustle people by myself.  What you goin’ to do, ride double?”

Aphasia laughs and says, “We goin’ to scope out that preppy-ass school down town.  You know, where Sammy Evans goes, him and his cornfed _girlfriend_  and shit.”

“You want to start up shit at William McKinley?” Santana asks, sitting up a little bit more.  “That’s whack.  You know I’m fucking transferring there next year cuz they’re a magnet school with good AP classes.  What the fuck, yo.”

“Yeah, and what, you don’t want people to know who you are, what their place is?”  Aphasia tuts and glances at her.  “Besides, you need a girlfriend.”

“ _What_?”

“You heard me, you big gay bitch,” Aphasia says, easily enough.  “You think I don’t notice how you try to look up that Rachel girl’s skirt every time she and Sammy stroll by on their way to the corner store on 8th?  Shit, girl, I’m about five minutes away from designing you some sort of U-shaped telescope to make that shit easier on all of us.”

Santana bounces onto her feet and says, “Get the fuck up, Phasia.”

“Bitch, I’m not fighting you because you want to get on some girls, what the fuck is  _that_ ,” Aphasia says, kicking at her shin.

“You’re accusing me of all sorts of shit here, I am  _demanding_  my right to defend my honor, or I’mma tell your mom what’s really in that box under your bed.”

Aphasia flicks away what’s left of her cigarette and narrows her eyes at Santana.  “You wouldn’t.”

“You want to keep your hands on those precious nunchucks, you get up right now and let me kick your ass.”

Aphasia gets up slowly and then laughs.  “You such a dumb ho.  Getting slapped ain’t going to make you less gay, Santana.”

“Fuck you,” Santana says.

*

Two days later, they stare at each other from across the school yard again.

_ I ain’t sorry _  is Aphasia’s note.

_ I ain’t gay _  is Santana’s.

They patch things back up by jumping Puckerman together and demanding he gives them a ride over to William McKinley High School, full of stuck-up rich bitches and jocks who really just won’t know what the hell hit them.

*

They scope the school for a week or two first.

The social hierarchy is almost pathetically obvious.  Dumb ass blonde girls in cheerleading skirts have meatheads wrapped around their fingers; and entire crowds part when one particular dumb ass blonde girl walks into the school.

Santana pulls some fucking nerd with a massive ‘fro back with his collar on the fifth day they’re there and says, “Virgin Mary—the fuck’s her name?”

“Who?”

“That blonde bitch over there,” Santana says, pointing a finger past his eyeline.

“You’re—you’re not supposed to be here. You don’t matriculate,” Fro Nerd says, shaking on every word.

“Listen to me, you little dipshit.  I matriculate  _wherever_  I want,  _whenever_  I want, and right now I am about to matriculate my fist in your fucking face if you don’t answer my  _goddamned question_ ,” Santana says.

Aphasia laughs from the bench she’s sitting on and gives her a small round of applause.  

Fro Nerd shakes some more, but by the time she drops him on his ass, she knows that the first link in the chain is called Quinn Fabray, and that she’s an abstinent Christian cheerleader who might be a harder nut to crack than anything they’ve tried so far.

They head over to a Dairy Queen for some shakes after that, and Puck flirts with the girl at the counter while they come up with a plan.

“I’m not  _beating_  up some white girl who’s never done anything to me.  … she’s a  _girl_ , yo,” Santana says.

Aphasia raises her eyebrows.  “You ain’t got any problem kicking my ass.”

“You’re like, part girl, part  _beast_.  You’re boss.  That’s different.”

Aphasia looks pleased enough by that answer.  “Well, if you ain’t gonna kick her ass, that leaves one other option.”

“Which is—”

“ _Seduce her_ , yo.  Get into her panties, ruin her rep, get some shit to blackmail her with,” Aphasia says, rolling her eyes.  “Damn girl, for someone so smart as to be takin’ all sorts of AP classes next year, you sure are fucking slow sometimes.”

Santana blinks at her a few times.  “Bitch,  _no way_.”

“What, you afraid you can’t do it?”

“What?   _No_ , I just—”  Santana feels herself start to blush furiously, which is just fucking balls.  “It’d be like … my  _first time_ , I don’t want my first time to be with some bitch named Quinn Fabray.”

“Seriously, what the fuck kind of name is that,” Aphasia says.

“Yeah, cuz you can judge,” Santana says, rolling her eyes.

“Whatever, ho, at least I wasn’t named after the fucking concert my parents done and made me at,” Aphasia says, flicking a quarter at Santana’s face.

She catches it before it hits.  “I’m  _not_  doing her.  I’ll like… do stuff, but I’m not doing her.”

“Bitch, I don’t need to know about your sex life,” Aphasia says, making a face.  “Keep that shit to yourself, yo.”

“I’m—oh, fuck you,” Santana says, flicking the quarter back towards Aphasia, who just laughs and catches it.

*

She learns some pretty interesting shit about how to hit on girls in the next few days.

The first day, she lounges by that red little shitheap that she knows is Quinn Fabray’s car and waits for her to show up after cheerleading practice or whatever it is the chick does after school.

“Get off my car,” Quinn Fabray says, darkly, when she spots Santana.

“How about you make me?” Santana drawls, slowly, before scanning her eyes up and down Quinn’s body.  Bitch seems stuck up and kind of annoyingly mean, but whatever.  Her body’s tight.

“Much as I would love to alert the authorities because some hoodlum won’t let me reverse out of my parking space, you’re basically just wasting my time,” Quinn says, ignoring Santana completely and dropping her gym back on the back seat of her car.

Santana steps in closer, her breath almost ghosting up the back of Quinn’s neck, and says, “Yeah?  Well, if you like, I can stop  _wasting_  your time and show you a  _good_  one instead.”

She uses what she’s pretty sure is her sexy voice, but honestly, most of her practice at this shit comes from chatting up dudes who grow a boner the minute they  _see_  her.  Lima Heights is easy like that.

McKinley High, not so much, if the elbow to the gut she receives from Quinn Fabray is anything to go by.

“You’re a perversion,” Quinn Fabray says, almost spitting the words into her face from where she’s lying on the ground, clutching her stomach and trying to catch her breath.

“If you got issues with that, why are your panties all wet and shit?” she finally gasps out.

Quinn’s face contorts brilliantly, but then she just steps over Santana like she’s a heap of garbage before backing out of the spot.

Puckerman and Aphasia are rolling on the floor with laughter by his truck, and Santana dusts off her jeans and her shirt and walks back over to them with as much dignity as she can.

*

Flirting is obviously not her game, so she tries something different; that something being, keying the shit out of Quinn’s car and then gently whirling her key chain around her finger when Quinn walks over.

The rage on Quinn’s face is kind of hilarious when it’s mixed in with terror the way it is.

“What have you  _done_?” she whispers.

“Um, I keyed the shit out of your car, because I was trying to be nice to you yesterday and you showed me no respect,” Santana says.  She almost whistles at the end of it, before tossing up her keys and catching them.  “S’how we do it in Lima Heights.”

“I—” Quinn says, and fucking hell, the bitch starts to tear up.  “My dad is going to kill me.”

Aphasia is going to fucking mock her for this forever, but Santana  _does_ actually feel a little bit guilty about potentially ruining this girl’s life, so she steps in close to her again and says, “Hey, it’s okay.  Just come with me now, and I’ll get my man Puck to give your car a fresh paint job.  Okay?  On the house, s’long as you come with me.”

“To do  _what_?” Quinn asks, angrily and tearfully.

Santana scuffs her feet and says, “You know, sex shit.”

“ _Sex shit?”_ Quinn all but screeches.

“Okay, maybe not right away,” Santana concedes, shoving her hands into her pockets and sighing.  “Look, you are making my life one big fucking headache right now.  I’m trying to seduce you, so you will be like, all fucking afraid of me telling other people about our  _thing_ , and then I’m going to get your help to like, steal everyone’s lunch money up at this place.”

Quinn stares at her like she’s grown a second head.  “Are you crazy?”

“No.  I’m that girl who rules two miles east of 8th, and I’m looking to expand my business,” Santana says, calmly.

Quinn gapes at her for another moment and then says, “Wait.  Are you that Aphasia girl that keeps stealing Sam Evans’ wallet?”

Santana grins.  “No—that’s my girl over there.  I’m Santana.”

“I’m  _not_  sleeping with you,” Quinn says, leaning back against her car.  She folds her arms over her chest and then looks at Santana appraisingly.  “However, I’m willing to help you out—”

“Why?”

“—in exchange of a twenty percent cut in your profits,” Quinn says, with a small smile.  “My college funds could use the boost.”

Santana blinks at her twice and then says, “Done.  But I’m not telling Aphasia about this shit, so you’re still going to have to walk off with me and we’re going to pretend to hook up like, behind the bleachers or whatever.”

“I’m not being seen with you in public,” Quinn says, with a sneer.

“You know, I don’t normally  _hit_  chicks, but you are really introducing me to a whole new way of life right now,” Santana says, slowly.

Quinn sighs and says, “Fine.  But if anyone asks, you’re my new community outreach ward.”

“Fuck  _you_  forever, you uptight bitch,” Santana says.

“Take it or leave it, Santana.”

*

She takes it, which is how they end up sitting stupidly on a set of bleachers while Quinn explains which kids are fair game and which kids fall under her dominion.

Santana takes some notes on a receipt and finds out pretty fucking quickly that almost the entire school is up for grabs, because Quinn has a shitload of power and doesn’t seem to know how to do anything productive with it.

“Cheerios are off limits, of course,” Quinn finally says.

“You’re  _not_  actually fucking called that,” Santana says, with a smile.  “That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Funny, coming from the girl who attempted to molest me into submission about half an hour ago,” Quinn says.

Santana rolls her eyes and shoves the receipt into her pocket, tipping her cap back just enough to actually look Quinn in the eyes.  “Back in the Heights, we spit and shake on deals like this.”

“I’m not touching your saliva,” Quinn says, but then digs out her nailfile and stabs herself in the finger with it before Santana can do anything else.  “Blood bonds.  It’s how the Cheerios commit at the start of the year.”

Santana stares at her.  “Okay, I don’t want to go all fucking Health Class on your ass, but I ain’t touching your blood.”

“I assure you, I’m not sexually active nor do I have any other communicable diseases,” Quinn says, dryly.

“Yeah, speak for yourself, sister,”  Santana says, because fuck if she’s going to tell this Quinn girl that she’s still carrying her v-chip.

Quinn smiles.  “Puh-lease.  If you’ve ever had sex, you would know better than to try that bullshit line you did on me yesterday.”

Santana glares at her and then holds out a hand for her nail file.  “Does this make me an honorary cheerleader?”

“I don’t know—can you do a round-off?” Quinn asks, with a sweet little smile.

They shake on it, pinkies first.

*

When she struts back to Puckerman’s truck, he’s necking with Aphasia, and she almost manages to slap him on the back of the head before they spot her.

“And?” Aphasia asks, raising her eyebrows.  “You tap that virgin ass?”

Santana smiles slyly and raises her right hand. “Bitch bit me so hard I  _bled_ when she came.”

“Hot,” Puckerman says, frowning when Aphasia slaps his roving hand away.

“So we in business?” Aphasia asks, because really: she’ll always like money more than she likes Puck’s clumsy-ass fumbling.

“We in business,” Santana agrees, and digs out the receipt full of easy marks.

*

By Friday, she’s splitting a hundred bucks with Aphasia, and then fifty bucks with Quinn Fabray, who meets her out back by the gym area and slides her share of the take up her spankies in a way that makes Santana blush furiously.

“Yeah, you’re terrifying,” Quinn says, with a laugh.  “Good working with you, Lopez.”

Santana watches her walk away to meet a friend; a friend who is, holy shit, about eight feet of leg, and that’s before she lifts one of them up on the third row of bleachers and starts stretching out.

She knows she’s gaping.  Possibly also drooling a little, but that’s fucking impossible, because Santana Lopez does  _not_  drool.  Maybe she engages in a little bit of fly-catching, but that’s the worst of it.

Quinn’s friend notices her staring like some fucking half-dead fish, of course, but just smiles and gives her a small wave, before bending forward even more and Santana’s eyebrows shoot up involuntarily.

“Guh,” she says, out loud, before willing her hand to do something.  It ends up knocking her cap off her head, and then she scrambles to pick it back up and basically flees.

*

The operation continues smoothly.

Aphasia and Puck have their own share of collections, and Santana focuses mostly on the AV Club nerds: some kids named Lauren, Jacob and Artie, who all cough up their cash without problems.  They’re all rich, and Lauren eats like a fucking heifer so she gets almost 200 bucks in lunch money every fucking week.

“You should be thanking my hot ass for that diet I’m placing you on,” Santana tells her, sweetly, before strutting back down the hallway.

She rounds a corner on the way to the exit, and walks right into something.  Something tall, and delicious-smelling, and—

“You should push that cap up a little more.  So you can see, and stuff,” the blonde says, before actually  _reaching_  for Santana’s cap and adjusting it.  Like it’s a fucking beanie or something.  Like she’s Santana’s  _mother_.

“Hey, hands off,” Santana grumbles, but then makes the mistake of looking at the blonde’s face and—

She’s a fucking angel.

“Hi.  I’m Brittany,” she says, with a small smile.  “Quinn’s told me about you.  You’re her partner in crying, aren’t you.”

“… crime,” Santana says, after a second.  “And I’m nobody’s partner.  Quinn’s my bitch.”

“Okay,” Brittany says, easily enough, before biting her lip and saying, “Can I maybe be your bitch, too?  Stealing people’s lunch money sounds like fun.  I mean, as long as we give it back at the end, like Quinn says you do.”

Santana’s pretty much still stuck on  _can I be your bitch too_ , and then tries to verbalize some sort of response, which again just comes out as, “guh”.

Brittany’s face falls a little.  “Or not.  I mean, if this is a smart people club.”

“It’s not,” Santana says, quickly.  “You can like—be the distraction.”

“The what?”

“You know, the fine piece of ass who distracts people that we knock over,” Santana says.

Brittany turns around and looks at her ass.  “I don’t have a piece of ass, though.  I have like, a whole one.  Will it still work?”

Santana’s eyes draw towards Brittany’s waist almost automatically and _damn,_ there those legs are again.

“Uh, yeah, it’ll work.  It—I’ve gotta go,” she says, hightailing it out of there before she does something humiliating.  Like give all of her take back to those fucking AV nerds just because Brittany bats her eyelashes, or something.

*

Aphasia can  _tell_  something is up with her, though.  They’ve been best friends for fucking ages, and Santana’s distracted enough to need to cut the deck in their community poker game at least five times before she actually deals it appropriately.  (Meaning: with an extra pair of aces right at the back that they’ll swipe later on in the game.)

She gets cleaned out, and watches as Aphasia wins all of her money back.  It’s pressed against her chest later, and Aphasia says, “You startin’ to get feelings for that Quinn bitch?”

“What? No,” Santana says, honestly, because Quinn is shrewd, a real piece of work, but way too fucking high maintenance and her voice is like goddamned nails on chalkboards.

“You off your game, bitch.  Get it together,” Aphasia says, a little warningly.

“Even when I’m  _off_  my game, I got more game than you,” Santana responds, with a wink.

Aphasia smiles and says, “Better.”

*

Brittany shows up at her next handover with Quinn.

“Oh, cool,” she says, when Santana raffles through a load of bills before shoving half down her pocket and the other half down Quinn’s Cheerios top. “Is this like that game where something is hidden and you have to find it?”

Before Santana can think to stop it, Brittany’s hands slide down her pockets—like, all of them ,at once, like she’s some sort of octopus—and Santana squirms away from her violently.

“Got it,” Brittany says, holding up the money.  “I’m going to go and give that back now, okay?”

Santana makes a noise in protest, but honestly,  _hands in interesting places_ , and she just can’t get herself to do anything but stare.  And make another noise, a few seconds later, when Brittany’s skirt flips up as she rounds the corner.

Quinn’s looking at her with a perfectly arched eyebrow.  “You just got held up by someone who has the street smarts of an amoeba.”

“I don’t  _hit_  girls, I told your dumb white ass that before,” Santana protests, with a glare.

Quinn smiles after a moment and says, “Brittany’s open to new experiences.  And, God help me, but I kind of like you.  You’re sort of hilariously inept at your villainy, and about as threatening as a kitten.”

“Don’t fucking  _test_ me, Fabray, I will digitally alter some fucking pictures of you to make it look like you’re a member of some Mormon sex cult and—”

“Would you like to go on a date with her?” Quinn asks.

Santana stops talking abruptly.  “What?”

“Would you like to go on a date with her?” Quinn asks again, more slowly, scuffing her nails on her Cheerios top.  “Because I can make things like that happen.”

“I don’t  _date_ ,” Santana says, a little roughly.  “Dating’s for fucking—cheerleaders.”

“She  _is_  a cheerleader,” Quinn says, dryly.

Santana purses her lips and scuffs her foot in the dirt, kicking some up against Quinn’s white ankle socks.  “I don’t do  _dates_ , but I could show her around the ‘hood and shit.”

Quinn dryly responds with, “I’ll do you a favor and make that sound more appealing than it does when I put it to her.”

Santana rolls her eyes, but then squints at Quinn. “Lemme borrow your car.”

“Absolutely not.”

“It wasn’t a question, Q.  Give me your car, for this … neighborhood viewing, or your dad’s going to see you sucking a priest’s cock in about three days time,” Santana says.

Quinn’s jaw muscles work furiously and then she says, “You know, there is something wrong with gang culture these days if you people have to rely on _Photoshop_  to carry out your threats.  Whatever happened to the good old days of brass knuckles?”

Santana grins and says, “As Aphasia says, ain’t nothin’ wrong with showing some versatility.”

*

It’s not a fucking date.  She’s wearing one of her oldest Tupac shirts and her black jeans and her black Chucks, which is what she wears basically every day, and maybe she  _did_  dig out her cleanest cap, but whatever.  People in Lima Heights fucking do laundry too, sometimes.

Quinn’s car is for real the biggest shitheap she’s ever seen, and for a moment she considers giving Quinn her entire take from now on just so that bitch can invest in a better car.  (She’d buy her own, but it would last about three weeks on the streets, so investing in Quinn seems like a far better alternative.)

Brittany doesn’t really seem to care about any of that though, in her jeggings and her ridiculous fucking bear hat with pompoms, and—

“Are you wearing  _leg warmers_  on your arms?” Santana asks, glancing over while jiggling the gear shift some more.

“It’s a thing.  I mean, not yet, but it will be now that I’m doing it,” Brittany says, reaching for Santana’s hand and pushing it forward, slotting the car in first easily.  “I’m kind of a fashion icon.”

“Really,” Santana says, fighting a smile.

“Oh, yeah.  I’m super hot.  People want to look like me,” Brittany says, in the most casual tone of voice.  “I mean, some people do.  You probably don’t.  But you’re totally hot the way you are, so that’s cool.”

The car jolts forward.  “You can’t—stop saying shit like that.”

“What, that you’re hot?  But… why would I lie?” Brittany asks, sounding seriously confused.

“I just—it kind of distracts me and this car is trying to kill us,” Santana mumbles.

“Oh, God, I hate it when that happens.  My toaster hates me; I think it’s plotting something with my cat, so I haven’t slept in like five days,” Brittany says.

Santana figures it’s probably best to just focus on driving.

*

It’s difficult to explain how they went from the corner, where Santana had pointed out the relevant landmarks—”that’s where I broke Puck’s skull”, “that’s where Aphasia lost her v-chip, that dirty bitch”, and “that’s where I knocked over my first grandma”—to this Chuck E Cheese that’s just about on the edge of adjacent.   
  
Well, actually, maybe there’s a rational explanation, in that Brittany had squealed, “I love Chuck E Cheese!” and Quinn’s asshole car had driven them there automatically.

Now, she’s surrounded by children, watching Brittany eat some fries and drink a soda.

“This is the best first date ever.  I love your neighborhood.  It’s so colorful,” Brittany says.

“What, because every fucking inch of it is covered in tags?” Santana asks.

“I love graffiti.  It’s like… bad people art,” Brittany says.

Santana smiles and says, “You’re kind of fucking out there, aren’t you.”

Brittany dips another fry in some ketchup and eats it quickly.  “I’m not fucking at all right now, but if you want to, we probably should go outside, because there are like… a lot of children here, Santana.  That’s just not okay.”

Aphasia has prepared for her every level of shit-stirring in this universe, but really, that bitch could’ve done a little bit more to prepare her for talking to girls like Brittany S. Pierce.

*

A Miata is definitely  _not_  the ideal place for trying to score.  Not that Santana would have a fucking clue about what  _was_ , but whatever, she’s sixteen, she figures she has about seventy more years to start narrowing down her choices.

Anyway, Miata: fucking awful place to hook up, but Brittany’s mouth is doing a pretty good job of distracting her from that.  Holy shit, that girl can kiss, and then her hands are all sorts of clever in ways that Santana can barely even focus on.

She’s basically being molested in the most pleasant way  _ever_ , and it’s awesome.

Their cramped situation in the back seat is kind of aided by Brittany’s flexibility, because somehow those legs fold in all fucking directions, and Santana can only stare as Brittany gets on top of her and says, “Okay, we’re going to have sex now.”

“Okay,” Santana agrees, stupidly.

“But only if you promise to stop robbing everyone at my school because, honestly, it’s kind of dumb,” Brittany says, looking at her seriously for a change.

“Are you—is this blackmail?” Santana asks, in a high-pitched and desperate kind of voice that she doesn’t really recognize as her own.

“No, silly, it’s not mail.  I’m just not going to give you an orgasm unless you start being nicer to people.”

Aphasia’s cardinal rule is pretty much do  _not_  let sex get in the way of business.

As it turns out, Aphasia  _is_ a dumb ho.

“Yeah, okay, fine, fuck it.  I’ll be nice.  Just—keep doing—yeah, that.  That thing.”

Brittany’s smile is basically the prettiest thing on this fucking earth, and twenty five bucks a week in nerd lunch money really will never compare.

*

She’s limping a little when she meets up with Aphasia on the corner later that day.

“Bitch, what happened to  _you_?”

“Got fucked,” Santana says, trying to hide a smug little grin.  “I mean,  _really_ got fucked.  Like—had about three O’s, got fucked.”

Aphasia slaps her upside the head.  “I told you not to tell me about your pussy-patrolling ways.  Goddammit, girl, I just had dinner.”

“Whatever, I’m feeling so fucking good, the world has to know,” Santana says, leaning back onto the steps.

“This where you tell me you’re going clean because some blonde girl made you promise you’d play nice?” Aphasia asks, dryly.

“I—what?  Fuck, you’re like some fucking mind reader or something.”

“Bitch, you  _always_ been soft.  Remember when we was nine?  You let me walk off with that taffy even though you could’ve taken my ass back then.”

Santana grumbles.  “Whatever.  One of us has to keep it real.”

“You still doin’ my fucking additions for me?  Because you know I hate counting my take.  I just like rolling around in dollar bills, yo,” Aphasia says, bumping her in the shoulder.

“I could just buy you a fucking calculator.”

“Bitch, what fun would that be?” Aphasia says, laughing.

Santana grins and cuffs her in the back of the head, because that’s how they do it in Lima Heights.


End file.
